he's the first man to speak out about enhanced interrogation tactics used by the cia he's been called a hero by human rights advocates classified as a villain by the government now cia whistleblower john kiriakou to sit down with our team stay tuned for an interview you won't want to miss. and the u.s. economy takes a sharp turn downward in the fourth quarter of two thousand and twelve but wasn't the previous quarter a wildly successful one r.t. takes a look at the accusations the bureau of labor statistics manipulated economic data to benefit president obama's reelection campaign. the question is were you right or wrong that you're pretty straightforward question world however i would like to answer with you right or wrong and then you are free to elaborate just a small piece of a very heated hearing chuck hagel is going on the defense on capitol hill today as

one congress member outs or another take shots at his readiness to lead the defense department a look at his this world war of words coming up. it's thursday january thirty first time this mall here in washington d.c. and you're watching r t we begin today taking a look at whistleblowers in america former cia agent john kiriakou was sentenced to thirty months in prison just a few days ago he struck a plea deal and admitted to revealing the identity of a covert officer to a reporter he was originally charged with violating the ass be a notch act kiriakou was the first cia official to publicly confirm the use of waterboarding and other tactics he describes as torture under the bush administration but his supporters believe he's being unfairly targeted and punished for blowing the whistle. on this government practice john kiriakou himself joins us

now and one of his final interviews before he goes to prison along with jasmine radicals is attorney really appreciate you both being here today in no time anything is of the essence for you want to start off by asking you about this plea deal that you struck with the government and what it is that you admitted to right i admitted to confirming the name of a former colleague to a journalist who was looking for former cia officers to interview for a book. plain and simple and this is a far cry to what the the prosecution was going after you for it of violating the espionage act doesn't can you go into what that accusation means and what that entails sure yes a lot of people who are whistleblowers in fact six of them have been charged under the espionage act which is an antiquated war war world war one law meant to go after spies not whistleblowers and being charged under it means that you revealed

national defense information with the intent to harm the united states or benefit a foreign nation now both of the cases so far that have completely dropped all espionage act charges or thomas drake and john kiriakou the espionage charges have completely gone away they've been used rather as a hammer to force people like john into a plea bargain now john of a these are very serious accusations brought against you. did you ever feel like you were putting anyone's life in danger oh no i'm certainly not certainly not if if i had any inkling that there was a danger to anyone i would have never said anything about anybody but no this reporter was looking for someone to interview for a book former cia officers refer one another to journalists all the time for the purpose of books or interviews or documentaries and and the justice department

used to prosecute me and you were the first person to publicly disclose the use of torture that that this actually went on and you called that this practice of waterboarding and you called it torture this was revealed in an interview with a.b.c. back in two thousand and seven i believe we have that clip there. as time has passed and has as september eleventh has has you know has moved farther and farther back into history i think i've changed my mind and i think that waterboarding is probably something that we should be in the business of doing why do you say that. because we're americans and we're better than that. now john why did you decide to make this public that the government in fact uses this tactic of waterboarding and call it torture. because the bush administration more specifically president bush at the time was lying to the american people by saying that we were not

waterboarding prisoners we were not torturing anyone and if anyone was being tortured it was a result of rogue officers inside the cia i said that not only were we torturing prisoners but this was an official u.s. government policy and it was approved by the president himself serious saying the use of torture air wasn't rare that it wasn't grained and policy correct it was ingrained in policy it was being done on a regular basis can you tell us more about this torture program that you expose the various techniques that are used sure there were a bunch of different techniques something like ten and they range from the benign for example a cia officer grabbing a prisoner by the lapels that was the most basic level technique going all the way up to some of the terrible things that you've heard of like waterboarding there were actually couple that i always thought were worse than waterboarding one was sleep deprivation and i don't mean sleep deprivation for forty eight hours i mean

sleep deprivation for something like two weeks with no sleep with heavy metal music blasting into your cell. you actually lose your mind with that kind of sleep deprivation and some of these prisoners got to the point where they were unable to participate in their own defenses because they couldn't think straight for the lack of sleep and the other one was what was called the cold so they would put a prisoner into a cell that was chilled to fifty or fifty five degrees and then throw ice water on them every hour to just terrible treatment and to what end i'm there's no evidence that that any of these techniques ever resulted in actionable. intelligence intelligence that that led to the disruption of a terrorist attack no evidence whatsoever not some of the prosecutors in this case so what they're saying is that you are seeking fame by and by disclosing information and i was building a consulting business all they had to do was look at my ten forty my income tax

return to show that i was broke that i got absolutely nothing out of going on a.b.c. news in two thousand and seven and blowing the whistle on torture absolutely nothing now will president obama he has vowed to have this transparent administration here he is talking about this way to make government accountable is make it transparent so the american people can know exactly what decisions are being made made how they're being made and whether their interests are being well served. now how would you compare president obama has administration to the bush administration with the exception of the formal ban on torture i'm honestly not seeing a lot of difference between the obama administration in the bush administration except maybe that the obama administration has killed far more people using drones

than the bush administration ever did but i've believed from just about the beginning of the obama presidency that this was really an extension of the bush counterterrorism policy there was nothing new and gentle and i know that you've worked with with whistleblowers what do you think how do you turn view president obama and compare that to the bush administration especially in light of him saying that his administration is going to be one that is transparent well first of all i should say that both john and i have voted for obama so this is not being an anti obama thing but obama took the bush secrecy regime and expanded that by an order of magnitude everything including classification numbers have gone up the number of people being targeted for assassination has gone up the actual number of people we've been killing has gone up instead of torturing people we're just blowing them off the face of the planet so i think it's gotten worse under

obama it has been just stay the same and his affirmatively gotten worse john i want to address what the judge said in this case when she handed you the sentence judge leoni brinkema she said i think thirty months is way too light she goes on to say that this is not a case of a whistleblower. could you address her remarks certainly when i accepted the plea in october of two thousand and twelve judge brinkema commented at that time in open court that thirty months was a was a fair and appropriate. deal. i can only speculate of course but in january of this last friday the courtroom was packed with reporters and she may have seen an opportunity to to look tough in a case like mine that's one point and the other point is and this is a point that just makes very well in

a national security case the prosecution has the ability to have a private ex parte communication with the judge they did that in my case neither my lawyers nor i have any idea what the prosecutors said to the judge and they gave the judge a so-called victim impact statement that was classified top secret and that i was not permitted to see so i was not permitted to defend myself this was an ongoing theme through the course of my of my court case i was not permitted to defend myself so she she may have listened to whatever it was that the prosecutors told her and decided that thirty months was an appropriate she did say specifically that if she had the ability she would have given me ten years. so you think things are going on behind closed doors that are full to the penny and i'm positive there's a patent unfairness in the still secure decimally army much of the sentencing hearing in john's case was based around

a secret document that neither the public nor the defendant john had access to and that i thought was what was behind her comments that had inflamed the sentencing penalty also if the judge and the government don't get to decide who is a whistleblower one becomes a whistleblower through operation of law by disclosing abuse and illich galatea which is exactly what john did is that out of the norm deathlands said that practice the judge holding these kinds of meetings behind closed doors you know it's always been allowed that the judge can hold an ex parte in camera meeting behind closed doors but what what is happening more and more is that in these cases involving so-called classified information a lot more of the court proceeding is taking place behind closed doors and hidden not only from the defendant but from the public at large to a much greater degree john do you feel like you're being used as an example perhaps

as a warning to other western blowers oh yes and i think that the journalists will tell you that their national security sources have just dried up since my prosecution i think that's what the government's point was i think i think this case is much bigger than just john kiriakou it goes to freedom of speech and freedom of the press and i think there's a there's a real war on free speech right now. wow. to that point that you just said judge brinkema specifically said that she wanted to make an example of john kiriakou that that she was trying to set an example by giving him that sentence i mean she specifically stated that so now john you're facing thirty months behind bars in prison. do you have any regrets now looking back on this my only regret is that i didn't hire an attorney before i blew the whistle on torture i wish i had done that but no. the one thing that i wanted most of all was for my children to be proud of

me and i know that morally i did the right thing and my children are proud of me and that's the most important thing. when do you go to prison i'm going to prison some time in the next five to seven weeks ok i'm supposed to receive a letter from the bureau of prisons telling me the date that i'm to report in the in the facility how many kids you know i have five kids and how are you and your family preparing it's hard. you have to worry about everything from a will to a power of attorney to child care. it's hard we couldn't get through it without people like jessel and friends attorneys advisors supporters without without this community of people that's come out to help me i couldn't possibly have gotten through this. really appreciate you coming on. before and now that you know your

time is very precious right now sara really appreciate you coming on and telling us about everything that you both of them through that was a former cia agent and whistleblower john kerry aco and also jasmine radek director of national security and human rights at the government accountability project. well president obama is kicking off a second term after his inauguration last week and he was reelected despite a less than stellar state of the economy but if you can recall the days that led up to the election third quarter data came out that reflected an economy in much better shape take a look you're looking at the quarter to quarter growth in the year two thousand and twelve and you see the third quarter growth rises substantially these figures came out in those critical days before the election than in the fourth quarter post-election there is no growth in fact it's the first time the economy shrank since two thousand and nine well for some this is all too much of

a coincidence and believe the bureau of labor statistics manipulated the data to keep president obama in the white house because this really be the case to discuss i'm joined now by peter schiff president of euro pacific capital a great to see there peter so this is a very strong accusation that the president manipulated economic data to win reelection where's the proof. well i mean it would be the first time the government manipulates data but certainly if you look at the weakest quarter of the president's term basically occurring after he was reelected i mean some people might think that's too much a call of a coincidence as specially since you had a big increase i think in government spending in the third quarter that was on wound in the fourth quarter so maybe the government had some leeway in accelerating some of those expenditures to kind of boost the g.d.p. in the third quarter and then we kind of equalized it in the fourth but even if you look at the entire year of two thousand and twelve it's very very weak g.d.p.

growth and i actually think talking about manipulation i think the only reason that we had a positive number for g.d.p. in two thousand and twelve is because the government is under reporting inflation i think of the inflation rate accurately reported by government statistics i think the u.s. economy would have in fact contracted in two thousand and twelve i think it didn't contract is just that we're not being honest about it as you had mentioned much of the discrepancy in growth can be attributed to military spending it seems that there was kind of that splurging in the third quarter and then a plunge of defense spending later do you think that was intentional that that wasn't a tactic that they use. well it might have been but you know also our trade deficit got a lot bigger and that subtracted from g.d.p. that is a problem that's only going to get worse and you know think about this we've had a tax increase on everybody here in two thousand and thirteen so americans are going to be paying higher taxes i think we're going to have larger not smaller

budget deficits so i think two thousand and twelve might be the high point of the obama term and obama often talked about the lousy economy he inherited from bush well now he's dealing with the lousy economy he inherited from himself and i think whoever succeeds succeeds bush i mean to obama the next president is going to actually inherit a worse economy than eve did in his first term i think the obama recession is going to be much worse than the obama recovery and you know the obama recovery has been the weakest recovery ever you could imagine how bad the recession is going to be that's certainly a scary thought for a lot of people that are hoping and praying that we do not have another recession like the one that we just got out of i know you think that's debatable whether or not we got out of that i want to pass i don't i don't think it'll be that i don't think it'll be like that when i think it's going to be worse i want to i think the u.s. is in worse economic shape we've dug ourselves into

a bigger hole since two thousand and eight the next crisis is is going to be one where the dollar tanks and bonds and bond prices fall and that's could be a much bigger collapse i think the bursting of the dollar bubble and the bond bubble has much more dire consequences for the u.s. economy than the bursting of the real estate bubble i want to ask you something else that kind of makes this timely way where the obama minutes rate obama administration can point to as a possible reasoning behind that that this spike and slump in the numbers that we're seeing there and there was all this hype surrounding seaquest ration these across the board government cuts and many government agencies were tightening their belts preparing for this so that it explanation for the shrinking economy the anticipation of these cuts. now that's raising spin to a whole other level there's no way that the possibility of shrinking the deficit is what caused the numbers to be weak if we actually did shrink the deficit if we actually did reduce government spending that would be

a net positive for the economy because the government is draining the economy of the resources that it needs to grow unfortunately we didn't get that government spending is in is going up they've basically suspended the debt ceiling so that's not going to restrain us any more they're going to cancel all the spending cuts i'm afraid they're going to use the weaker fourth quarter g.d.p. as justification for cancelling the spending cuts and so the government going to keep on spending the fed is going to keep on printing the monetize the growing deficit and we're marching towards a real economic crisis the united states where the dollar is going to plunge and that's going to send prices and interest rates in america soaring there i want to ask you i want to point out this other justification that the white house is using the white house also blames superstorm sandy for shrinking the economy natural disasters as we now also are disastrous for the economy and also out of the government's hands. well look the government's going to blame everybody but themselves why doesn't the obama administration take

a look in the mirror if they want to know why the economy is struggling and believe me it's going to get a lot worse because we still have all this money that we borrowed that we have to deal with always did during the obama purse term is spend more borrowed money now the bills are going to come do we planted all these seeds of destruction that are going to germinate in a second term plus we're actually going to have to start paying for obama care and other programs that were launched in his first term but are kicking in a second so there are people who think that this is going to be where obama could really write his legacy because he doesn't have to deal with a bad economy anymore he's going to be trying to fight off this recession which is going to be worse than the one that he inherited now peter we only have about thirty seconds left i do want to point this out that because it sounds like you have a very pessimistic view a gloomy view of what's to come i want to mention though that the stock market has surged more than six percent this year breaking a record that's a good sign and fifteen seconds or less and for all the wall street has

a pretty good track record of getting it wrong you know the stock market was rallying right before the bottom dropped out in two thousand and eight so the big people of that run money major players on wall street and around the world are really clueless with respect to the true financial position in the economic health of the united states i don't doubt that that they that they get it wrong they typically do but at the end of the day stock price might be going up but it's only because money is losing value because governments around the world are creating inflation and debasing their currencies that's what's going on all right peter a tale i hate to cut you off there and where at a time unfortunately about a great audience as peter schiff president of euro pacific capital. well the u.s. senate is holding a hearing today on one of president obama's most controversial choices for a key job in his team chuck hagel is being quizzed on everything from relations with israel and the arab world to his view of women in the military at his confirmation hearing today to be secretary of defense hagel was grilled about his

stance on israel i would ask you senator hagel to tell the country the world at large but typically the state of israel you made a mistake but not signing the letter whose order to it goes to who is to present well i will look at it i don't recall the letter and i look at it going in and say well all i can say it was a very big deal at a very important time and the lack of signature but you runts chills up my spine because i can't imagine not signing a letter like that at a time when it really mattered well hagel is a has been accused of being anti israel now r t is that and if you can explain why certain political groups are so against his nomination chuck hagel has been under attack since his name was floated as president obama's pick for the defense secretary position it would see attack ads on all major us t.v. channels saying what a terrible defense secretary chuck hagel would be all who are december and march of

january they've been running these ads you know between commercials of beauty products your description drugs and what so somewhere between those you could catch attack ads like this one secretary of defense chuck hagel president obama says he supports sanctions on iraq voted against legal voted against labeling iran's revolutionary guard a terrorist group and while president obama says all options are on the table for preventing a nuclear iran eagle says military action is not a viable these are the responsible options president obama or secretary of defense chuck hagel is not a responsible option. that ad was sponsored by the emergency committee for israel so what that truck a will do to deserve that as a u.s. senator chuck hagel has been critical of israel's policies he's been critical of the israeli lobby in washington here's what he said the political reality is that

the jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here i've always argued against some of the dumb things they do because i don't think it's in the interest of israel i just don't think it's smart for israel and of quote among other things chuck hagel dared to say that u.s. interests should trump israeli interests if they conflict he supported direct negotiations with iran and unlike many other politicians here in washington who keep repeating the all options on the table mantra but these publicly they say that the chuck hagel has been straightforward in saying a strike on iran should not be an option and he has also been a proponent of a more even handed u.s. policy with regards to these really palestinian conflict and the u.s. has been anything but even handed on the issue it's also for statements like this one that he has been under attack take a look this is chuck hagel in two thousand and six the united states will remain committed to defending israel our relationship with israel is a special and historic. but it need not and cannot be at the

expense of our arab and muslim relationships. that is an irresponsible and dangerous fault choice some saw president obama's decision to nominate chuck hagel as his message to these really hard liners we actually heard president obama say there is too much war talk going on and maybe nominating chuck hagel is his way of bringing down the tension and not much not everybody here in washington likes that message but what's interesting since the beginning of the attack campaign against chuck hagel over these two months or so many of the attackers have sort of withdrawn their objections over charcoal goes domination some say could be because they received assurances behind closed doors that as defense secretary chuck hagel is not going to make any dress the moves to really challenge washington's foreign policy with the doxies. that was our international correspondent you can

many people call las vegas the city of said but if you want the real nexus of sex and power the place to look is washington d.c. another legislator has been embroiled in a sex scandal this time democratic new jersey senator robert menendez allegations of menendez consorting with prostitutes in the dominican republic first emerged on the daily caller a conservative website right before election day but the accusations reached a fever pitch when the f.b.i. on tuesday raided the offices of a prominent democratic donor and i surgeon in south florida miami herald reports of the federal raid was in relation to medicare fraud but it shines a light on the relationship between the doctor and the senator this is dr solomon milligan who allegedly flew an end to the dominican republic multiple times in two thousand and ten earlier this month as senator menendez sent the doctor a personal check for more than fifty eight thousand dollars to reimburse the cost

of the flights according to his office despite these issues without the rules of greater concern. it while menendez did in that island nation once the plane landed an anonymous tipster alerted the f.b.i. that the man spent nights with prostitutes now prostitution is illegal in the dominican republic and the senator is divorced but the real scandal is the accusation that some of the prostitutes menendez dealt with were under age as young as sixteen years old one anonymous woman claims that she began having sex with men and as around the time of her seventeenth birthday additionally it was also illegal for legislators to conduct activity against u.s. law when they are in other countries well the senator vigorously denies these claims so who is lying we will let you know as soon as we do that's going to do it for an album form of the stories we cover check out our you tube channel you tube dot com slash our to america will be right back here and i half hour.

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